A Morgan County seed company is diversifying their money portfolio with a special land lease. Freeman Seed Company of Murrayville has placed a 13-acre solar farm northeast of Murrayville along IL Route 267.
Jon Freeman said it was a way to make some of their property more productive: “The money was good on [the lease], and it’s not really invasive like wind farms. Where the company was wanting to put it was not the most productive land for us, so it worked out for what we wanted to do.”
The property gave a 25 year lease to Summit Ridge Energy to develop and finance a solar farm on the property. According to The Source, Summit has hired Borrego Solar to build the installation on Freeman’s property.
Freeman says that the 200 kilowatt project will connect to Ameren lines south of Woodson. Freeman says the site was selected by lottery: “Regulations for this project requires you to be in Ameren territory, and there needs to be an Ameren three-phase line that they can tie into among other things. The sites are picked by state lottery, and there were 4 here in Morgan County.”
The construction on the site began on April 21st and is almost near completion, with a projected online date by the end of September.